Ellie's Eyes
by hazelmom
Summary: Brass is having a bad day, and only Sara can really understand. Hints of GSR


**Disclaimer: These characters are the Property of CBS, inc.**

**A/N**: Geekfiction has a think called a ficathon, and I am posting a one shot for Velocity Of Sound who asked for a story involving Brass, Sara kicking ass, and a unique situation. This scenario has been running around my head for a while so this is what I wrote.

**Sheila**

**Ellie's Eyes**

She sat on the edge of the water fountain outside of Caesar's with her arms folded tightly, passing out glares in every direction, on principle more than anything else. It was 3 a.m., and she would have cut a slightly ridiculous figure out on the streets in the middle of the night if not for the yellow tube top, tight jean shorts wrapped around her thin body and the over sized high heeled lame sandals she could barely maneuver in. She was clearly a working girl. Her hair was pulled back with grease that was too heavy for her thin, blonde hair, her lips were cherry red, and got constant attention from a lip gloss tube she pulled out of her front pocket every 10 minutes or so.

Police, detectives, and crime scene investigators moved around her working the routine of a murder scene, and it might have seemed to some like she had everything in control with her flashing eyes and nonchalant slouch if not for her right knee bouncing up and down in a nervous staccato. Every few minutes or so, she would get up and start to pace, and an officer would order her to go back and sit down, and she would do so with all the dramatic energy of a fifteen year old girl being told to get off the phone.

Despite the fact that she had produced a reasonable looking ID which put her at eighteen, everything about her shouted juvenile to Jim Brass. She wasn't a suspect, merely a witness to a drive by shooting, but her presence left him very uncomfortable. He had left someone else to get her 'I didn't see nothing!' statement. When it was clear that she wasn't going to give more, he should have had them take her fake name, fake address, and let her go, but he couldn't.

This happened to him once or twice every year, and it never failed to end in a frustrating mess for him, his officers, and for the child in question. Experience taught him that situations like this never had easy solutions, and the child would invariably disappear into the night further affirmed of the belief that cops were not to be trusted, but it didn't stop him; like a bull trying to bust a fence, he would butt his head at it over and over again.

She has already threatened to call her lawyer and her boyfriend who were 'going to sue your ugly ass for violating my civil rights'. She tossed some more threats his general direction, and so he had retreated to a spot near the morgue van in an effort to regroup. He knew that there were those among his officers who were probably rolling their eyes and murmuring, 'here we go again' under their breath and praying that he wouldn't make them haul her in on trumped up charges that would invariably be dropped before the sun came up, but Jim Brass felt powerless to stop.

He leaned against the van and closed his eyes for a moment. It was in these moments that he truly believed that each and every one of these lost children was sent to him as penance for all the wrongs he had done Ellie. Every child he found on the streets was an opportunity to save the child he never had time for.

"Hey! You okay?"

She startled him, and he shot her a hard look.

Sara's eyes widened and she stepped back, "Ah, sorry. Look, we're finished, and I just want you to know that you can release the scene whenever you want, okay?"

"Yeah," he said, turning away from her. He was about to lose himself to his misery again when he heard someone clearing their throat. He whirled around, eyes narrowed, to find Sara still standing there. "I told you that I would take care of it."

She pulled a strand of hair behind her ear, shifting a bit in her discomfort, "I was wondering when you were going to release the girl."

He snorted, "Really, Sara, if you need evidence from her, take it. Otherwise, whatever else happens at this crime scene is not for you to question."

"I wasn't…I thought maybe I could help." She stood fast in the face of his anger.

"What could you possibly do?"

She looked away and let out a deep breath, "Look, Jim, I know about Ellie. Grissom told me."

"So you think you know what's going on here, huh?" Brass folded his arms and faced her.

"Grissom told me that what happened with Ellie broke your heart. He said that you've never forgiven yourself for not being there when she needed you."

His eyebrows rose, "He told you all that? I never knew him to be a psychologist or a gossip."

"He told me for a reason."

There was something in her eyes that slowed him, and drained some of the rage from his body. "Look, Sara, I've handled a lot of these cases, and I…appreciate that you want to help, but this is…you don't understand these kinds of situations."

She met his angry eyes and never wavered, "Maybe more than you think, Jim."

"And I'm supposed to know what that means." Brass shook his head and started to walk away.

Sara trotted after him. When she came up alongside him, he stopped, letting out a huge sigh. Before he could light into her again, she spoke, "You're not the only one with secrets. So if I were you, I would shut up and accept whatever help was coming my way 'cause you're not getting anywhere with her."

With that, she strode off toward the child, flipping a hand up from behind her retreating back when he tried to respond.

The girl was not favorably impressed with Sara in her civilian attire. She immediately launched into a litany of her civil rights she imagined were being violated at this moment. Sara waved a hand in front of her face. "I am not a cop, okay? I just want to talk."

The child rolled her eyes and began posing, "I do not need to talk to a social worker. I am eighteen. I have every right to be here, and when my boyfriend finds out what you guys have been doing to me, he's going bust all you all."

Sara grinned, "Can I just tell you, before we get anything further, that I used to be much better at this than you are. It helps if you don't look like you're gonna burst into tears every time you open your mouth."

The child narrowed her eyes at Sara, and set her mouth in a frown. Sara could feel Brass move up beside her, but she ignored him.

"I'm not a social worker. I work crime scenes, and I want to ask some questions."

"I don't know nothing!" The child screamed.

"Clearly!" Sara countered, "But I'm going to ask them anyway."

Sara could hear a cop guffaw behind her, and before she could react, Brass turned and waved his people away sharply.

"All right, my name is Sara. And your name is…"

"And you gotta know this because…" She cocked her head defiantly at Sara.

"Because I'm writing a book and you're the main character." For a minute they just glared at one another and then Sara said, "So throw me a name or I'm going to have to make something up."

"Clare," she murmured.

"Okay, Clare, so here's the deal. You say you're 18, and we think you're making that up. You can flash that ID in front of us all you want, but we're not buying it."

"You can't make me go anywhere with you. I got rights." She steeled herself, arms folded, standing on her knobby legs.

"I'm not going to make you go anywhere. It never worked with me, and I have no doubt that you're just as stubborn. I just want to know what's what. Why have you decided that this is your only option?"

"You don't know anything about me," she spat back.

"Right," Sara sat on the marble fountain, ignoring the fact that the kid wasn't relaxing. "I only know about me. I never got this far. Opportunity did present itself though."

Clare cocked her head again, "What are you talking about?"

Sara took a deep breath, very aware of Brass standing at her shoulder. "I hated foster care. I ran a few times. Mostly, I just stayed at friend's houses until the cops found me, but the last time, I was real serious and made it all the way to San Francisco. I was fifteen with all sorts of ideas about lying about my age and getting a job and paying for my own apartment. Only it rarely ever works like that, does it?"

Clare stared at Sara, still standing, but less tense as if all the posturing had fled her body.

"Can't get a job when you're fifteen, and when you can, it doesn't pay enough to get much of anything accomplished. If you go in for help, they only want to send you home, and you know that's no place to be. There's only a couple of ways fifteen year olds survive on the street; if you run drugs, you risk getting shot and turning tricks only sounds easier."

Clare sat back down on the fountain, looking tired more than anything. "You're lying to me. You never turned tricks."

Sara shook her head, "You're right. I never did. I got close. Almost let myself get talked into it. You know, you tell yourself that you'll only do it for a month. You'll save up your money, get a place, and, boom, you're set. You leave it all behind, get a job, watch your pennies, and everything turns out great."

"I heard of girls who make it out just fine." Clare threw out her last bit of defiance.

"Ever meet 'em?" Sara didn't wait for an answer. "Your pimp knows about these dreams. That's why he feeds you drugs and hits you whenever he feels like it. He wants to beat them out of you."

Clare made an involuntary noise and bit her lip.

Sara looked down at her hands for a moment, and they all let silence linger in the air. She could hear Brass breathing over her shoulder, but didn't dare look at him.

"How did you get away?" The girl whispered so that Sara had to bend her ear to hear her.

Sara licked her lips, "Well, I hooked up with a guy who gave me a place and didn't push. He bought food and clothes and it seemed like all my problems were being solved. But there was this other girl also staying there who was getting the same treatment, and one night I woke up and heard crying, and I went out into the hall and looked down the staircase and he was hitting her with his shoe and yelling at her because she came back with only two hundred dollars in her pockets. I went out the fire escape with nothing but the clothes on my back, and slept on a park bench for two nights until a street outreach worker found me."

Clare shrugged, "They just want to send you home."

"Well, these folks gave me a bed, clothes, food, and let me think about it as long as I needed. No pressure. And one day, I woke up, and realized that surviving a foster home was small beans compared to what I would have to face on the streets."

"And you lived happily ever after," Clare said, still unable to look Sara in the face.

"No way," Sara said, chuckling softly, "I still hated foster care, but I loved school so I put all of my energy into that. School saved my life."

The girl looked up and there were tears streaming down her face. "Well, what do you do if you're no good at school and your mom's boyfriend keeps trying to have sex with you, but nobody believes you?"

Sara sucked in breathed and looked away for a minute. She could feel Brass still standing at her shoulder, his energy building, and she turned back to the child, trying to blink away her own emotions. "Well, in a situation like that…you need a good guy like Captain Brass here to step in and make sure that your mom's boyfriend gets stopped."

She shook her head, "I can't trust him."

Jim cleared his throat and spoke, "Well…Clare, we have a place in Vegas just like the place that Sara described. You can get some sleep, clothes, and there's no pressure for you to go home right away. It's not locked. You can leave whenever you want. And you think about it and call me when you're ready to talk. I might not know what I am doing with girls, but you point me to a bad guy and I can make things happen. I promise you that."

"Angel's going to come looking for me if I don't show up in a few hours."

"Angel Bartell?"

She nodded.

"Yeah," Jim struggled to stay nonchalant, "I know Angel. How about I let him know not to expect you back?"

"He's going to be pissed," Sara could see that the girl was looking for reassurance. "And there are other girls there. I'm the youngest, but there is a girl who is fifteen and two who are sixteen."

Jim ran a hand roughly over his mouth, "So you're fourteen, huh? Well, I know how to handle Angel. He and I'll get this worked out just fine."

Sara could sense the anger growing in Brass, and she gently put a hand on his arm. "Clare," she said softly, "Please promise that you'll think at least a week before you make any decisions." Her eyes were resting on an ugly purple bruise peeking out from under her jean shorts. Clare saw where she was looking, and self consciously dragged the jean material over the mark.

Impulsively, Sara grabbed Clare's hand and pulled her in. The girl stiffened only for a moment, and then collapsed in Sara's arms, sobbing incoherently. Sara looked up, "They can come and get her right now. They have workers on the street until 5 a.m. most nights."

Brass nodded, but when she turned her head again a few moments later, he was still staring at the child in her arms, his cellphone still hanging from his belt.

………………………………………………………………………………………………

Grissom climbed out of his truck, and walked toward Sara who was sitting on the marble fountain next to Jim Brass. Neither of them noticed him until he was almost on top of them. "Hey, Sara! I've been trying to reach you for the last hour and a half."

Sara looked up, startled, "Oh God! I'm sorry Gris. My phone's in the truck."

"My fault, Gil. She was helping me with an interview."

Grissom looked around. "I don't see anybody."

"Youth Place Outreach picked her up about fifteen minutes ago," Sara responded. She slid off the fountain. Brass followed. The first rays of sun were starting to peek out from behind Caesar's Palace, and the sky began to grow the soft hues of dawn. The strip was almost deserted but for the occasional unblinking gambler, oblivious to anything but the thrill of the game, walking by.

"Most of the evidence is already processed. I just came back to make sure everything was okay." Grissom dug his hands into his pockets and stood there, looking awkward.

"I got to get my guys, and then I think we'll go pick up Angel Bartell. I anticipate he'll be resisting arrest so don't be surprised if he's a little tuned up by the time he gets down to the station." Brass put an arm across Sara's shoulders, and then to everyone's surprise, he kissed her on the cheek. "Thanks. You're amazing. I'm going to go see her tomorrow. Maybe she'll tell me something." He started to walk away and then stopped, turning to face Sara, "You know, her eyes sort of reminded me of Ellie."

Sara watched him walk off, and turned to Grissom. "Did I ever thank you for taking time to tell me that I wasn't the only one carrying demons in this work?"

Grissom cleared his throat, "For some of us, it's the reason we choose this profession."

Sara considered this for a moment. Then she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek slowly, taking a moment to breath in his essence. "Maybe one day, you'll feel like telling me about yours."

She let go before he could respond, leaving him standing there with a startled look on his face, and walked off to her truck, unable to stifle the grin pulling at her mouth.

The End


End file.
